A framework for talent management to support the 2030 knowledge-based economic vision for Qatar

Abstract

Over the last few years, the United Nations’ (UN) goals to achieve a sustainable world by 2030 have made a significant impact on many countries and regions; one such region has been Qatar. The national leadership of Qatar, through the strategic leadership of the ruler Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, embarked on an ambitious programme to transform the country’s vibrant oil and gas-centric economy to a knowledge-based economy. The leadership created the Qatar National Vision (2030), which had a focus on ensuring that local Qataris get the maximum benefit from the economy and fully participate in the process of transforming it into a knowledge-based economy (KBE). The QNV 2030 policy has many strands; however, the overarching thread has been to transform the economy through human development and sustainable productivity. In trying to operationalise the transformation of the economy, the government embarked on short-term programmes, such as the development of local infrastructure through the promotion and hosting of international events, including the Asian games and the upcoming 2022 FIFA World Cup. As a policy, therefore, the QNV 2030 has centred on ensuring that the economy creates a systematic way of attracting, identifying, developing, engaging, retaining and deploying local Qataris to work as knowledge workers within the local economy; this process could be referred to as ‘talent management’ – a sub-set of the human development vision of the QNV 2030, and of the UN at large.

This research found that, from the onset, the QNV 2030 policy had no tangible, detailed plan for organisations operating in Qatar to use in order transform the economy into a knowledge-based system through talent management. The research used interpretivist and positivist research philosophies to design a mixed methodology that relied on questionnaire surveys and interviews to gather both qualitative and quantitative data from the industry and from literature in general. The research used data from 284 questionnaire survey responses, 24 interviews and interpretive structural modelling to establish the overall picture that, while industries are aware of the importance of the QNV 2030, there has been no synchronisation of organisational and national goals. In addition, the research found that local cultural tendencies tend to create toxic working environments where leadership is restricted, talent
management stifled, and the wrong jobs are given to the wrong candidates. This is creating demotivation amongst those individuals who are well qualified but not socially or culturally connected.

The overarching conclusion of the research has been that, while the national leadership foresees a KBE in Qatar by 2030, the strategic leaders of organisations in the economy have failed to link their organisational vision to the national vision for the country. The operationalisation of the QNV 2030 has, to a large extent, focused on maintaining short-term economic gains as opposed to the longer-term visionary gains that could accrue if managers invested heavily in human development through talent management. As such, this thesis proposes a framework through which Qatar’s local economy might be transformed into a knowledge-based system through the deployment of a matrix of knowledge workers in learning organisations. It also sets out the critical strategic steps to be undertaken by organisations in both the private and public sectors.